Dennis Kucinich, Cleveland's youngest and most controversial mayor, wants to be president.

Now in his fourth term in the U.S. House, the 56-year-old Kucinich will announce tomorrow - Presidents Day - that he is forming an ex ploratory presi dential commit tee.

By doing so, he places him self in a crowd of much-better- known Demo cratic candi dates seeking their party's 2004 nomi nation.

Kucinich said voters need to hear alternative points of view on Iraq, trade and the nation's economic poli cies, all issues that will be at the center of his campaign. Yesterday, he spoke at an anti-war rally in New York near the United Nations.

"My experience in public life is that one person can make a difference," he said.

Kucinich said he is "testing the waters" and will commit to running for the nomination in June if his candidacy wins wide support in the next several months.

Kucinich is scheduled to be in Iowa today, where he is to meet with Democratic Party activists in advance of an appearance tomorrow with other presidential hopefuls at an AFL-CIO forum.

The Iowa caucuses next January are the first major contest of the 2004 primary season.

Kucinich's announcement ends months of speculation fueled by his high-profile stance against a possible war in Iraq and a vigorous effort to position himself as a leading liberal voice in Congress.

In Washington, Kucinich co-chairs the Progressive Caucus, a group of the most liberal lawmakers on Capitol Hill. He crisscrossed the country last year, traveling to 40 cities, to speak against President Bush's Iraq policy.

Kucinich could easily be labeled the peace candidate because his stand against war-making preceded the Iraq debate. Among the first bills he introduced after getting to Congress in 1997 was a plan to create a Cabinet-level Department of Peace, dedicated to finding nonmilitary conflict resolution. Another early bill barred deployment of weapons in space, a counter to Republican plans for a missile shield. Neither of his proposals gained much support.

Kucinich is the ranking Democrat on the Government Reform National Security subcommittee, which gives him a forum for his anti-war views.

On Wednesday, he filed a resolution in the House demanding that the White House turn over "any evidence it has about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction."

He also claims credit for helping develop a Democratic policy that resulted in a law providing a $300 tax rebate to individuals in 2001. The National Journal, a Washington periodical, said Kucinich voted the liberal line 95 percent of the time in 2002 on economic issues and 90 percent of the time on foreign affairs.

He voted against the Patriot Act, which gave the Justice Department vast powers to track terrorist suspects in this country.

But Kucinich, a Catholic, deviates from his liberal pedigree on abortion, voting against Medicaid funding for the procedure and opposing the procedure known as partial-birth abortion.

While he said he stands by his votes on abortion-related issues, he acknowledged he has been meeting with abortion-rights advocates. "I have reached out to both sides," he said.

Abortion notwithstanding, Kucinich's positions overall place him to the left of most of the announced presidential candidates on the political spectrum. And he is likely to draw support from the same base of voters that backed Ralph Nader, the Green Party presidential candidate, in 2000.

Others who have announced their interest in the 2004 Democratic nomination are U.S. Sens. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, John Kerry of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina; former House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri; former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean; and New York activist Al Sharpton. Former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun has said she plans to file papers for a presidential exploratory committee this week.

Kucinich, who was elected mayor in 1977 at the age of 31, left a mixed legacy in Cleveland. As mayor, he is best remembered for his battles with businesses and for his refusal to sell the city-owned electric utility.

He barely prevailed in a 1978 recall election, and he lost his bid for a second two-year term the following year to George Voinovich, now a U.S. senator.

But Kucinich maintained a strong political base and was elected to the state Senate in 1994 and then to Congress.

Though he is a deft campaigner, capable of rousing a crowd, he is not widely known outside Ohio. And he has never faced the challenge of raising large sums of campaign money - an imperative in a serious presidential race.

He starts from scratch on national fund raising. He began the year with a mere $7,032 in his congressional campaign account - money that could be transferred to a presidential campaign.

Among Kucinich's recent donors were actors Elliott Gould and Ed Begley Jr. Both gave $250. Kucinich, who has not named a fund-raiser for his presidential bid, said he soon will have a Web site through which his supporters can contribute money.

If he can't raise millions to open campaign offices and hire an army of workers, his presidential campaign could turn into little more than a series of speeches that raise his profile but garner few delegates.

But Kucinich has little to lose. He can run in the Democratic primaries next year while also seeking re-election to his House seat, according to the office of Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.